Laura Cereta

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Laura Cereta, posthumous portrait in the 1640 book edition

Laura Cereta (also Laura Cereto or Laura Cereti ; * 1469 in Brescia , † 1499 ibid) was an Italian scholar and writer. She wrote a series of letters in which, in some cases, with uncompromising harshness, she defended views on the rights of women - especially the right to education and the rights of marriage - which are now classified as feminist .

Life

Cereta was born in Brescia in late August or early September 1469. She was the oldest of six children (three boys and three girls) of Silvestro Cereta and Veronica di Leno, two members of noble families from Brescia in Lombardy . Laura's childhood was happy, she accompanied her father on business trips - he oversaw the construction of military installations on behalf of the City of Brescia. When she was seven, her parents sent Laura to a convent for two years , where, in addition to handicrafts, she learned to read and write, but also to obedience and self-discipline. Arguably suffering from insomnia, she spent a lot of time studying instead of sleeping. Back home, her father taught her math , astrology , grammar , rhetoric and philosophy . Apparently, in addition to Latin , she also learned some Greek . Laura Cereta was particularly interested in astrology. She created horoscopes and tried to fathom the influence of the stars on humans or the planets on medicinal plants . She also made calculations about the distance between the planets. She had contact with other scholars and visited the Santa Chiara Monastery and, together with one of her brothers, the Academia Mondella , a group of humanists who met with the doctor Alois Mondella.

The Church of San Domenico in Brescia (photograph from 1883), burial place of Laura Cereta

At the end of 1484, at the age of 15, Cereta married the merchant Pietro Serina from Brescia, who died of the plague only 18 months later . Even after the marriage, Cereta remained literary and even intensified her correspondence. It is not certain whether she actually studied philosophy at the University of Padua . Between July 1485 and March 1488 - that is, when she was around 15 to 19 years old - she wrote numerous letters, including a. to Bonifacio Bembo , Ludovico Cendrata or Cassandra Fedele . Reply letters are known only from Fra Tommaso (November 4, 1487– February 4, 1488), accusing her of dealing only with pagan subjects. You should - instead of dealing with humanism - exercise humility. Cereta initially replied that she was also studying the church fathers Augustine and Hieronymus , but from 1488 onwards she actually dealt exclusively with faith .

In 1488 Cereta published her letters and dedicated them to Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza , under whose patronage she placed herself. Six months later, Laura Cereta's father, who had supported her all her life, died. The lack of his support, the social pressure and social isolation as well as the confrontation with the death of her husband are considered to be the reasons why Cereta did not publish anything from 1488, but her active, self-propagated life devoted to study through a contemplative and contemplative life replaced life devoted to religious studies.

Laura Cereta died suddenly in 1499 at the age of 30, the cause of death is unknown. She was buried in the Church of San Domenico in Brescia with great public sympathy.

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Title page of Laurae ceretae epistolae , published in 1640 by Giacomo Filippo Tomasini

The surviving literary work of Laura Cereta consists exclusively of the letters she published in 1488, the total number of which is given as over 80. As with other humanists, her letters were intended to be published from the start. They are considered a testimony to Cereta's rhetorical skills. They are often invectives or treatises in speeches on important theses of humanism. Although she did not quote classical texts, she showed her knowledge of classical literature through appropriate allusions. Cereta's style is considered complex and her Latin overstylized. In terms of style, she was initially based on Francesco Petrarca , and later on Augustine and Hieronymus. In terms of content, Cereta was particularly an advocate of women's rights.

The exact year of very few of their texts is known, while the day and month are often given. Exceptions are a mocking funeral oration in honor of a donkey and the prologue to her collection of letters. The approximate dating is partly possible via the content, since the letters before the death of her husband dealt particularly with classical literature and astronomy, but after 1486 they dealt more with faith and death. Even moral philosophical questions treated Cereta: the uncertainty of fate, marriage, love, loneliness, advantages and disadvantages of a retired life, death, war and its causes, and greed.

Cereta became famous for her five pamphlets in defense of women's education . In a letter to "Bibulus Sempronius" - the name is an invention of Cereta, possibly alluding to Gaius Sempronius Gracchus , and roughly means "drunkard Sempronius" - she branded the flattery of men towards women as their degradation. Bibulus' praise for Cereta's outstanding erudition is an insult because every woman is able to develop her mental faculties, as many learned women have shown in history and among their contemporaries. The upbringing of girls on outward appearances alone ensures that the number of educated people is lower than that of men. Knowledge is gained through study, not through talent. Both sexes are gifted with the same talents, women only need more support because of their physical weakness. He himself, Bibulus, is nothing more than an inanimate stone that perishes in sluggish idleness because he renounced a study that could have made him a wise man. His attempts to flatter her are underhanded, as he is actually trying to overthrow the entire female sex, which is why she in turn has to fight him.

In her letter to Augustine Aemilius , which dates about six months after the death of Pietro Serina, Cereta examined the woman's situation. She apologized for the fact that women, in general, were more interested in looks than in studying. However, women who devoted their lives to education are also exposed to great social pressure - an experience Cereta had to make several times. The attacks against her went so far that it was claimed that her letters were not from her pen but were written by her father. Cereta was particularly annoyed that women were among her sharpest critics. In a letter to "Lucilia Vernacula" - also a fictional person, translated as "common slave", according to another interpretation "self-invented Lucilia" - she directed herself violently against stupid women who demeaned educated women. This would discredit not only themselves, but their entire gender. Women should liberate themselves through education, women are equal to men in learning and have equal rights.

The only philosopher she mentioned is Epicurus , whom she interpreted not as a representative of hedonism , but as an advocate of moderation in the search for happiness in life. Cereta also dealt with other issues of moral philosophy.

Aftermath

After her death, numerous historians and literary historians praised Cereta's education, but mostly without seriously considering her life or her positions. In 1640 the Dominican clergyman and bishop Giacomo Filippo Tomasini copied part of their letters and reissued them under the title Laurae ceretae epistolae and provided them with a biography of Ceretas. It was not until the 20th century that a local historical and modern philosophical examination of Laura Cereta and her proto-feminist theses began.

literature

swell

  • Laura Cereta. In: Marit Rullmann u. a .: women philosophers. From ancient times to the Enlightenment. edition ebersbach 1994 ISBN 3-905493-44-6 pp. 136-139
  • Larissa Reinold: Cereta, Laura. In: Ursula I. Meyer and Heidemarie Bennent-Vahle: Philosophinnen-Lexikon. ein-FACH-Verlag, Aachen 1994 ISBN 3-928089-05-6 pp. 87-90
  • Larissa Reinold: Cereta, Laura. In: Ursula Meyer and Heidemarie Bennent-Vahle: PhilosophinnenLexikon. Reclam Leipzig 1997 ISBN 3-379-01584-9 pp. 136-140

further reading

  • Albert Rabil: Laura Cereta. Quattrocento humanist. Binghamton / New York 1978
  • Albert Rabil: Laura Cereta , in: Rinaldina Russell [Ed.]: Italian women writers: a bio-bibliographical sourcebook . Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press 1994, pp. 67-75
  • Margaret L. King: Women in the Renaissance . Translated from the English by Holger Fliessbach. Beck, Munich 1993. pp. 238-240
  • Margaret L. King, Albert Rabil: Her Immaculate Hand. Selected Works By and About The Women Humanists of Quattrocento Italy. Binghamton / New York 1983
  • Laura Cereta: Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist, transcribed, translated, and edited by Diana Robin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997
  • Irene Tischler: Theories of the gender difference in de Pizan, Cereta and da Pozzo . Innsbruck Univ. Press, Innsbruck 2011

Web links

Commons : Laura Cereta  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Marco Palma: Lemma Cereto, Laura , Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Volume 23, 1979, pp. 729f
personal data
SURNAME Cereta, Laura
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ceretti, Laura; Cereti, Laura; Cereto, Laura; Ceretti Serina, Laura
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian scholar and writer of humanism
DATE OF BIRTH 1469
PLACE OF BIRTH Brescia
DATE OF DEATH 1499
Place of death Brescia